(December 20, 2009 at 1:11 am)tackattack Wrote:(December 18, 2009 at 12:50 am)chatpilot Wrote: tackattack said "My personal definition of faith is a little different though. It is the conviction of the truth that, while God can not be proven/unproven absolutely, he exists and is testifiable to; from an individual perspective."
I disagree with you here in stating in your own words that the existence of god itself is a "truth" and that he "exist". Faith itself is not a fact and your individual perspective is just that. Subjective evidence or in this case declarations of certitude do not qualify as objective facts.
Experience is objective though.
It absolutely is not objective, experience is one of the single most subjective things i can think of.
Quote:I guess because of my belief in God. atheists automatically deem my personal perspective subjective.
No, we deem everyones experience as subjective, including our own - we hold the verification of truth claims to a far higher standard than the religious.
Quote:But there is a degree to objectivity and based off of what I've observed in the spirit, it's nowhere close to the landslide I think most atheists wish it were (not that I can speak for any).
Commonality is not objectivity, especially when none of you can say you came to the conclusion on your own but you rather were convinced of pre-existing ideas, case and point there has never been an isolated community who never knew of the Christian myth that still came to the same spiritual 'truth' because of the spirit.
Also, it's a common anecdote that the same experience of the spirit that the religious feel in church is the rush that someone else gets at a rock concert or on the waves etc, in fact it is quite well understood and is neurophysiologically defined simply as exhilaration. I am unaware of any extra neurophysiological effects enticed by what people call 'the spirit' compared to any of the other forms of exhilaration.
.
